Despite producing highly fashionable and quality fabrics, local fashion houses have been facing uneven competition from the smuggled Indian dresses that have flooded the markets of the capital and some other areas of the country.
Local boutique owners, who have been fighting to take the local fashion industry to a greater level, urged the authority concerned to immediately check the present trend of easy access of these foreign clothes which are sold at much lower prices as the traders do not pay duty or VAT (value added tax) to the government.
Talking to the FE, Lipi Khandaker, owner of leading fashion house Bibiana, said the response to her dresses was poorer compared to the previous year for which she considers aggression of foreign dresses is the reason.
"Our customers have been divided as they have lots of options now. They now get glazy dresses at much lower price because VAT or duty is not paid for these smuggled goods," she said.
"We are not against foreign dresses; but those should not come so easily that they invade the local fashion industry as many people are making a living through it," Ms Lipi added.
Many boutique owners blame media for the extensive indirect propaganda of those foreign dresses during news broadcasting.
President of Fashion Entrepreneurs Association of Bangladesh Azharul Huq thinks media is indirectly promoting foreign dresses. Although names of those dresses are misleading, media has been contributing to popularising those to the customers by frequently broadcasting news about them, he explains.
"Still I think the overall share of the local dresses is greater than that of the foreign dresses. Because we see those dresses have flooded the markets of Dhaka only and in some other areas it is in a limited scale," he added.
Mr Azhar does not consider clothes of India or any other country as his competitor as those do not represent Bangladeshi heritage or culture.
"We neither have those materials in our country to use in our dresses nor can we import and use them paying high duty. So we cannot consider those dresses as our competitor," said Mr Azhar.
Shahid Hussain Shamim, managing director of leading local fashion brand Prabartana, said the trend of buying foreign dresses is usual as it was earlier. There will be some customers who will always buy foreign dresses as their special ones, he added.
Mr Shamim said in many cases local traders sell their locally produced dress saying Indian ones depending on the customer type and demand. They often copy a popular Indian design and sell it, he observed.
"There are customers who always buy local dresses and they are buying those this year too. But the number of sari customers has declined this year," Mr Shamim said.
During a visit to Deshi Dash at Bashundhara City Shopping Mall in the city, this correspondent found a large number of customers pouring in the local brand shops including Sada Kalo, Anjans, Rang etc to buy local fashionable dresses and accessories.
Local designers have designed saris, panjabis, kids and women's dresses keeping in mind the weather of Bangladesh.
Fashion houses facing uneven contest from smuggled Indian dresses
FE Report | Published: July 25, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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